8.23.2012

When summer fully sets in the grass and the ground hardens a little so you can graze smaller pastures.

In springtime when you have a lot of young, soft plants you don't want to graze them very hard so you move the cows around in considerably larger pastures being careful not to overgraze. The ground is also softer and if you get a big gully washer flood you get a lot of 'pugging' where these 1000# beasts compact the soil.

Pugging is a bad thing for the grazier, and a necessity for the potter.

The potter must pug or wedge his clay to make it uniform, remove air pockets, and compress it. The grazier wants to avoid pugging because quality soil needs to be more open to grow more forage.